Embracer Canceled 29 Games And Laid Off 1,400 People In Just The Last Six Months

Embracer Group, one of the biggest video game and entertainment companies out there, has confirmed it canceled 29 unannounced games and laid off nearly 1,400 people in the past six months as part of its previously announced restructuring effort.

During the July-December period, Embracer said the number of gaming projects it had in the works fell from 153 to 124, according to VGC. Total headcount was cut by 8%, or 1,387 jobs. These cuts includes 871 game developers at internal studios, 264 at external studios, and 252 internal staff working on game projects as non-developers.

Damn! 29 games canned and 1,400 people. That is freaking a lot.

Dang, Wasn't aware of their name, but I know a lot of their games.

Staggering that they had more games than MS and Sony in production. 29 games is a LOT.

@Heil68: @Pedro: ??? It’s like they hate games.

I would wager that most of them were in development when Embracer acquired the studio and then cancelled after the acquisition.

@IMAHAPYHIPPO: but questions remain. Why exactly are they doing that. What would they have to gain, exactly??

I mean, you'd have to ask them. I'm not a part of Embracer. If they're cancelling projects, it's most likely a money-related thing. Best guess is the money they projected to earn from sales of the games did not match the cost of developing them.

Only one guy needs to be let go.

The CEO.

FIRE CRYSTAL DYNAMICS EMBRACER

Does this mean they're worse than EA?

The struggle is real😨

@IMAHAPYHIPPO: From what I recall they had a multi-billion dollar deal in the works with the Saudi's who were going to fund the majority of their games, somehow that deal fell through and Embracer are now basically fucked, hence all the lay-offs.

I'm on my phone so finding the story and then linking it to here is too much of a nightmare.

EDIT: here is the link https://www.kotaku.com.au/2023/08/report-embracers-2-billion-deal-that-blew-up-was-with-saudi-arabia/

@outworld222: Read my reply above this one and all will become clear.

Hope MS buys them, and this time instead of offering the "in case deal doesn't go through fee", make that sum so that it buys access to their catalog in Game Pass until the issue with regulators plays out.

And if not MS, somebody. They got too many great devs/publishers under their name.

Indeed. I knew they had a deal that didn't go through, which is undoubtedly a reason why their projected funding for projects is changing.

Not having 2 billion dollars you were planning on having would - by necessity - affect the personal or business decisions of all but a small handful of people or companies in the world.

And even the ones that wouldn't be financially restricted by that would very likely change their strategy and spending behavior because even people or companies with hundreds of billions of dollars understand that 2 billion dollars is a staggering amount of money.

@last_lap: ya….I understand more now. IMO I think Saudis are inexperienced in game development. Which makes sense in regards to what’s going on.

Damn. Losing that $2 billion dollar deal certainly crippled them.

Tomb Raider has Amazon to the rescue.Deus Ex wasn't so lucky